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Well, I’m back. To what though, is the real question. There’s the whole America Collapsing Under Generations Of Racial Hatred thing.

Okay maybe that’s an exaggeration but a year that began with the death of Bowie and continued thru the death of Prince seems hell-bent on taking away everything good and leaving everything bad.

In other words, I’m here to talk all things Pokemon.

Pokemon Go to be exact. Amidst the shitstorm that has been the daily news the past year, it was a bright spot. What’s not to like about people leaving the confines of their home and, phones in hand, tracking down the anime characters of their childhood on their own neighborhood streets?

Well … I hate to be that guy, but someone has to be.

Look, I get it; it’s a game, it’s fun, and what’s wrong with fun? Absolutely nothing. But the parks has become a mecca for Pokemon Go and it’s absolutely cluttered with slow walking I-Zombies hunched over their phone searching for these characters. They’re looking into their phones when they could be looking at the stars, and that’s the problem isn’t it? Not a Pokemon problem but an overall one with my generation and the generation following unable to give up their childhood. We’re in our 30s and 40s, reading comic books, buying action figures, watching old cartoons, watching movies based on those cartoons. We’re looking to the past and missing the present.

I am as guilty of this as anyone. I mean, look at my cork-board above my desk:

Yes, those are 2 GI Joe figures in their packaging – part of the line’s 25th anniversary re-release. No I have no intention of taking them out of the package. Why do I have them there above my writing space where I can glance at them anytime I want? Nostalgia. that momentary thrill I got every time I hit the toy section of whatever department store I visited with my parents back in the 80s. Rounding the corner and seeing all those glorious action figures on pegs, row after row of them, waiting for me to convince/beg/plead with my parents to let me have just one. It’s a silly thing, but the microsecond I get of re-experiencing that thrill fills me with a tiny sense of well-being.

Getting nostalgic is a thing that happens when you’re older. It’s a natural part of growing up. The more serious and complex life gets, the more inclined we are to seek comfort in the past. The past is knowable. It’s predictable. It’s safe.

But I also remember when my childhood ended. Not by year – when you’re a teen you can’t really call it a childhood, but you are still a child. No, ended when I started college; not being in college, but at the end of my first semester when my parents announced they were getting divorced. I was an adult then, but wasn’t until that news dropped that I realized there really was no going home ever again. And I never did, really. That’s a theme running through much of my work; the character in search of a home. I have one now, with my wife and child but there’s a small part of me that would trade all I have now to experience those years that were far from golden and only seem that way through the gauzy filter I’ve slapped on my formative years. Even the mid-late 1990s when my life kind of sucked has taken on a mythic tone. There was good stuff nestled amidst the bad, but there always is.

So yeah, the day I found out the future would never be the same as the past I wanted that past back, more than ever. I dug deep, into comic books and movies and TV – not the new stuff but the old stuff. Because it was comfortable. Because it was there. Because unlike my future, I knew how the past ended. Only years later did I realize those entertainments and memories associated with them were my life preserver. But then, when I got on top of my shit, accepted the new reality, and forged my own path those toys were put away.

But does childhood even end now? When 40-something bitch about an all-lady Ghostbusters, when people who are actual adults are running around with their phones to find Pokemon characters, when we’re splurging on toys and trinkets that make us think of a simpler time, are we short-changing the present and future by holding onto the past?

I’m as guilty of this as anybody. I listen to 70s-90s alt rock exclusively, though I do listen to my share of newer artists as well. if I really want to go down the rabbit hole there’s YouTube, which has vintage toy commercials, old After School Specials, music videos, documentaries, home movies. Last year as we prepared for our child’s birth I marathoned my way through The Wonder Years and the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and Parker Lewis Can’t Lose on Netflix, YouTube, and Crackle; both for completion’s aspects – I missed huge chunks of both series, but because watching them as an adult transported me back to a time I was a child. Mixtape trades on Gen-X nostalgia for the music of its youth. Hell, my next novel, a sci-fi/horror thriller called Underneath, is set in 1988 and features everything from MTV and video stores to mix tapes and John Hughes. You can’t fully leave your past behind. My parents were nostalgic for the Beatles, Woodstock, and their lazy days at the cottage when they were in their 30s and 40s, and more so now that they’re in their 70s. Life moves fast – faster the older you get. Summers used to drag endless; now they’re far too short.

But as my time becomes more precious, I find I have less time for childish things. Having a child is part of that, but I still managed to unload my old Star Wars, GI Joe, and Transformers toys on eBay without so much as a tear shed for those pieces of plastic that provided my childhood with so many fine memories. The time I have not occupied by work and day-to-day maintenance of house and home is spent with my wife and son, creating new memories for all of us.

Though I did hang onto a few choice items for old time’s sake

So I hope you enjoy Pokemon and comics and toys and games; I really do. I hope you find them a salve for the struggles of your day-to-day life because while I don’t know your struggles I know they can beat you down and leave you broken. But I also hope they aren’t becoming substitute for new experiences, new joys, and even new sorrows. My son started walking on his own while on our trip, and I’m happy I was able to see it unfold in real-time, not thru the screen of a phone surrounded by Anime characters. I’m only going to get one chance to experience these things for the first time and I don’t want to miss any of them.

I often joke the worst “life flashing before your eyes” would just be your POV of your phone screen. But it’s no joke – I see it in the playground when pushing my son on the swing and I’m the only adult not staring at their phone while their child tries to get their parents’ attention. When my son rolls his ball across the floor to my desk while I’m working, I feel a sense of shame that he’s trying to get my attention while mine is focused elsewhere. That’s why I turn the computer off and get down on the floor with him; because while work will wait, if you wait too long for it, life will pass you by.

Everybody has one: the Greatest Summer Of Your Life. The one that stands out above all others. I consider myself fortunate that I have had many summers that stand out.

Summer 1994. My first full summer living in the big city. I have money from crewing music video shoots and a few weeks break and end up spending it at the same best friend’s place while his family is away on holiday. We barbecue, we drink, we hang by the backyard pool, we throw parties, and hit the hay as the sun rises. For three glorious weeks I’m the most relaxed I have been and ever will be.

Summer 1999. The year I go pro. It’s a great summer, not because I have leisure time because I most certainly do not. It’s a lot of hard work, lots of writing, but the stage has been set that every season subsequent is me, working from home, writing, and earning a living at it. 17 years later I’m still doing it.

Summer 2015. I become a dad, and while sleep is lacking and stress is high, it’s perhaps the most incredible experience I’ve ever had.

But Summer 2016 looks to be over before it’s begun, because Magicians Impossible is coming in with notes and edits from my editor, and a timetable for completion that means the next three months are given over to that.

Back on March 1st when I delivered MI, I decided I was taking a break for a month. My first real “time off” from work in a couple of years. That, and the fact I was still recovering from a serious back injury and I needed time to rest and recuperate and clear my head. And I did just that … for maybe 10 days. The writer’s brain is never really idle; after a couple weeks of rest and relaxation and being “dad”, I needed to start something new. I began outlining my next book project, and outlined and began scripting new comic book project.

Where those two projects will fit in the grand scheme remains to be seen but both are on the backburner while I tackle the Magicians rewrites. And Squadron, well, where that goes is anyone’s guess, but it has the potential to completely disrupt and dominate my life for the next several years.

So there’s going to be something of a slow-down on this website the next little bit, until I get atop all the work stuff. There will be updates here and there but of the short and punchy variety, like this one.

But rather than just leave you with “I’m going to be away for a bit, I leave you with this. I’m not one to talk about fatherhood because there’s no shortage of people that do, but I leave you with this thought that came to me on Father’s Day as my wife and I took our son to a nearby park to hear some live music.

When you’re young, your first intro to music comes from your parents. Their music becomes your soundtrack. Long car rides for me are always associated with The Beatles and Stones and Simon and Garfunkel and Gordon Lightfoot and ABBA.

Then, when you’re older and in school, it’s your friends music that becomes yours. You bond over it For me it was MTV and Much Music, Prince and Thompson Twins and U2 and INXS. There’s Top 40 and College radio. That’s your soundtrack.

Then, in your later teens, you want to carve out your own identity. You reject the mainstream and find your own path. Depeche Mode. Sonic Youth. Nirvana. In my case the underground became the mainstream for a brief moment before fading back into obscurity. or maybe it’s you who fade.

Life takes over. Music is not as important. You have a job, and bills, and college loans, and just trying to get by living.

Then, you start getting back into it. You find new music, new bands. The White Stripes. Coldplay. Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Or, you dig back to that time music meant the world. You find stations that play the music you listened to in your teens. You find you like the music you used to rail against because it reminds you of those years when you were young and you were looking out the windshield at the road ahead instead of the rear view and the road behind.

Then you find you’re listening to the music your parents listened to because it reminds you of them.

Then you become a parent yourself and your child first experiences the music you listened to. Then they discover their own music. Then the cycle repeats.

I moved around a lot as a child. By the time I was 12 years old I’d lived in 8 different cities. I got very used to (and very good at) making new friends and even better at saying goodbye to them. In fact, my entire childhood is pretty much compartmentalized, with memories tied to a specific place and time, and those memories extend to TV, music, movies, comics and so forth.

For the longest while I thought this was normal; that everyone moved with the frequency we did. Then I later realized that my life was the exception; my friends were kids born in their city or town and grew up there and would very likely remain there for. They were lifers; I was just a face and a name passing through, staying put for a short time, then one day I was gone and my face and name would fade from their memories. I doubt many, if any of the people I went to school with in all the places I lived remember me at all. I was the anomaly, not them, and while I once liked the excitement of new cities, new homes, and new schools, over time I came to hate those moves. I came to hate having to say goodbye. I wanted stability. I wanted a sense of place. I wanted a home, not a house.

Pictured: the writer as a brooding young man

I bring all this up because I’m at work on my next project, a novel largely inspired by the years 1986-1992. While wholly a work of fiction – it’s a horror/sci fi/mystery hybrid – it’s still drawn from the reservoir of memories of my years in that town. It’s about many things I experienced there, and after I left. Mostly it’s about saying goodbye.

It’s been quite the experience so far. Like opening old wounds. Sure, you remember the good but to create real drama you have to zero in on the bad. I’m taking my mind places it hasn’t gone since, well, since those darker days. It hasn’t been pleasant, but it’s been necessary. Both the good and the bad have given me fuel, but so have the mundane moments; shooting pool, hanging out at the arcade, renting crappy horror movies form the local video store. Those moments that seem inconsequential at the time that take on mythic importance so many years later.

I hated my smalltown, but I think every teenager hates where they grew up. It was boring, it was stale, and I felt trapped. Even when I got my driver’s license and my first car I felt tethered to home like I was attached by a big elastic. Just when I thought I’d achieved freedom there was something to snap me back. Had I lived someplace exciting like Toronto or New York I’m sure I’d have things to complain about them too, but age changes things. Your memories of that “miserable” time become more golden. You realize that, while they were far from what some would call “the best years of your life” they were special, they were meaningful, and they mattered because they made you the person you are now. Your work ethic, your personality, all of it formed in that blast furnace called High School. It was when you made the decision, conscious or otherwise, to be the person you wanted to be.

Unsurprisingly, if you know anything about me, music has been a great gateway to those years and memories. The infamous box of old mixtapes that inspired Mixtape have come in handy here, as have the assorted yearbooks, photo albums, magazines, notebooks and so on that have been following me around for almost 30 years. Unlike Mixtape, this new project has that element of the fantastic that hopefully means a wider audience than the ‘musical memoir’. It’s very different from Mixtape but shares a lot of its DNA. If you take the cast of my comic and all of a sudden dropped them down into Invasion of the Body Snatchers you essentially have this new thing. Like Mixtape, it has unlocked old memories and opened old wounds. Much of my dislike of those years is because that was the period my parents’ marriage hit the rocks. It was not a happy time. There was yelling and arguments at the dinner table, on outings, even on one infamous birthday celebration (mine). I couldn’t wait to get out of there and when I did I never looked back or went back.

One of the great tragedies in life is that we grow up thinking we’re alone and that nobody anywhere understands our problems or what we’re going through, only to learn well after the fact that on every street, in every school, in every town small and large there were people our age going through the same things we were. You can’t help but be haunted by your past and the memories you have of that long ago and far away land. Whether you realize it or admit it, it’s a part of who you are. And I think by embracing the past, warts and all, you stand a much better chance of navigating the present.

If writing is therapy I suppose this new project is mine. Especially being a father now I’m trying to come to terms with the person I was versus the one I am right now and the one I hope to be. To teach my son how to be a better person than his father is. To show him that despite a world that seems dark that there are joyous moments to behold. That even when he’s upset or unhappy and wishing he lived anywhere but here (wherever that will be), that in time it’ll be a lot easier to remember the good moments than dwell on the bad.

So that’s it. Now take care of yourselves. I have a novel to get back to.